My First Boot of Ubuntu 9.04

I was so excited this morning as I will now have the new version of Ubuntu 9.04 on my system. I had used the beta and rc and was happy with the way it worked. So I was anxious to see what the final version was really like. Now, just a little background, I switched to Debian 5 previously because I was tired of bugs an problems with Ubuntu. So now my base system is Debian 5 but I am testing the waters with Ubuntu, again.

So I was one of the first to complete the download. I put the Ubuntu 9.04 into the test laptop and booted up to the CD and began the install. I wiped out the old version and started the install by choosing to use the whole disk. Once I started the process….CRASH!!!!

I never was able to boot…the system crashed with a problem with the XWindow. Great…I check the MD5 sum for the CD and it was downloaded an burned correctly. So off to troubleshooting the problem……

2nd Install Attempt
Rebooting and reinstalled the system using the same CD. This time the install went all the way without crashing ..until the end…then it froze and crashed right at completion…..not this again.

3rd Install Attempt
What troubles me is this installed fine on the rc but not with the real deal. So I tried again….SUCCESS!!!!!!!! I booted and found everything in place. I clicked the network icon selected my wireless network which was detected and off I go….I am glad that it worked. The only thing I can see is a possible problem with the rc install that was there before.

Still, this version of Ubuntu will need to earn my respect as I was not happy with issues in the last version. So I will keep posting back my impressions today as I spend the day pushing to see what it really is like.

Booting Speed a Dramatic Improvement!
Now you can boot and see huge improvements…finally. Now I have booted a couple times just to wonder at the boot speed…excellent.

UFW Firewall works out of the gate!
If you do:
sudo ufw enable

The firewall will work immediately with no problems so far….again a big improvement.

Updates Already!
I installed Ubuntu 9.04 and within minutes I have updates to do…well I guess that is OK…I just do not want to be fixing this version of Ubuntu for the next 3 months, that is what I felt happened last time. Putting releases on time schedules may not be the best way to build an operating systems. On the other hand, I want to apply security fixes and that I will always appreciate…

Wireless Support
The first time I clicked on my wireless network…worked fine. Rebooted and now it automatically detects every time and the firewall works perfect….just what I was looking for.

OpenOffice 3.01
To Ubuntu’s credit they waited until 3.01 came out as my experience with 3.9 was not real positive. But OpenOffice 3.01 is an excellent option and seems rock solid.

Printing
I had Ubuntu 9.04 detect and install my network printer with ease which is a HP 4300 LaserJest. I just put in the IP Address in the printer administration for network printers and it detected correctly and install the right drivers.

Flash Install in the Browser
I installed the Adobe flash player as it seems to work better. Install is easy just select the “install additional plugins” when asked and then choose what you want to install. Another positive addition.

Turned Off Some Apps at Startup
Hey…I don’t use these apps so why let me resources go down the tube. So I easily removed these. Highlight what you do not want and delete.
I removed Remote Desktop, Bluetooth, Evolution, Visual Assistance and the irritating Gnome Login Sound.
Go to Systems/Preferences/Startup Applications

Home Folders
I am very sensitive to distros telling me what to do with my system, one reason I did not like Windows, but Ubuntu places all of these folders in the /home directory(Music, Documents, Videos, whatever…) for each user. I really do not like those as I set it up much different. So if you are like me and want something that works for you or for your organization, go to /etc/skel and make modifications. As root you can remove examples.desktop so that you do not have all of those folders when you create a new user. In fact, you can created the folders you want in /etc/skel and that will be rolled out to everyone.

Network Tools
I checked out the updated network tools and scanned a machine for open ports…looks like a mail server. I am just trying out all of the settings just to give the whole OS a good workout.

Edit the Menu
Editing the menu is a breeze so that you can make the menu fit your needs. For example, I don’t plan games so I always remove that from the menu and then make other editions. Just select System/Preferences/Main Menu unselect what you do not want and add what you to.

Visual effects
Though the visual effects are clever and add some interest to the desktop, they really only take away the resources I want to use for other things on my laptop so I disable the visual effects. Right click the desktop choose “Change Desktop Background” and then choose “Visual Effects”, here you can turn them on and off for whatever you like.

Disk Usage
The default install takes about 2.3 GB of space for the / directory. You will want to increase space for sure as there will be updates and programs you want to add.

Memory Use
Here is the output of the command free.
This is not a good site at all. Total RAM is 767MB but almost all is already used with a browser open and Gimp…. It is using SWAP already….no speed here.

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The download of Ubuntu 9.0.4 is about to finish and I can’t wait to install it. I wonder how much space do I really need for Ubuntu? I just hope everything works fine here, we’ll see.

Very nice post mate!

kendon

April 24, 2009 at 5:06 am

a full installation needs about 3gb. i have already some programs installed and have 3123mb used on /.

i think the memory is full because of the way linux handles memory, afaik the memory is freed up when it is needed, but not sooner. meaning linux keeps files in the memory until it is needed for something better.

i installed jaunty yesterday, and the most awesome thing was my dvb-t stick working OUT OF THE BOX! in hardy i had to find a driver, compile it and so on, took me about an hour until i had it working. now i installed kaffeine, plugged in the stick, fired up kaffeine and had tv! thanks to saving my home partition even my channel list was there! awesome. try that with windows ;)

@Kendon> which DVB-T stick you got working so easily? I am considering one myself…

Ari

April 26, 2009 at 10:55 am

Thank you for writing about your experience. I am sorry to say, but between your previous experiences with installation and the installer crashing on this one, you COULD have some kind of hardware issue.
These things include:
1) running on a buggy BIOS
2) trying to run more than one device on the primary data cable
3) jumper settings on the device
4) BIOS settings that is causing too many devices trying to use the same IRQ due to poor design on the part of the motherboard manufacturer
5) a dying hard drive (check out spinrite)
6) old hard drive firmware – yes, hard drives sometimes ship with older firmware
7) the cd or dvd device is sharing a data ribbon with a problem device.

For a good rule of thumb in the future, updating everything, then stripping down your system to the optical device, one hard drive and a standard keyboard mouse would greatly reduce the variable of problems.
Until you actually confirm hardware compatibility issues, and check out the motherboard or OEM’s website for the most current firmware updates, you cannot dismiss these factors from your installation problems.

I have to say that Knoppix is able to recognize almost everything. If you want to figure out a problem, you can load either LiveCD knoppix or puppy and open a terminal and run lsmod and pcimod and gather the results to find out how those distros run your hardware and then bring it back to your preferred distro.
Again, I would run this only after you have updated the machine to the latest firmware.
Note: You can never second guess the change logs or release notes of a firmware update.

I found that you can load Ubuntu 904 in a Compaq tower, and transfer the hd to those troublesome towers, like Dells and Asus’s… It takes a couple minutes for the tower to acclimatize to the new hd, but it worked for me with a Dell and an Asus, without any glitches…

I’ve read that running Janitor screws-up 904.. but I thinks that’s only because someone ran Janitor before doing all the updates and the final reboot…

I found that if you install any peripheral packages before doing the updates, it can wreck the install…

I avoid Wine.. it only adds holes to the OS, which hack AH’s can exploit.. and I’ve got all the greats big time angry at me, with the occasional death-threat too.. so they are desperate to destroy my PC’s OS, but even microsoft AH’s can’t touch Ubuntu… They sure want to after I published that I believe microsoft will be filling for bankruptcy in 14.3 years because Ubuntu put Windows out of business yesterday… They’re sure squirming now… They’re trying to figure out what “love” means, but they don’t have a bludy clue… The human race won’t forget how much they bullied us, and how they sucked-up the money that was our “quality of life”, which the money world is now dismantling, and selling back to us in little pieces…

When I was running Windows, near the end of my using Windows OS’s it got that the AH’s were destroying my PC’s OS biweekly.. It even got hit by Storm, the the big bad billy slammed my PC a few times.. each time totally destroying the OS.. so I was forced to switch to Ubuntu about three months ago… Now I can leave the thing on and Net-connected all night, and the monkeys haven’t got in… I equate Windows to the evil/demon extinction side of humanity.. and Ubuntu to the good/honest life side of humanity… Seems good side is slowly beginning to win out over the great evil side, which has been sucking the essence of life out of everything on this planet for a couple thousand years, in selling out Life for more and more money…

Me thinks the most important thing to do before installing Ubuntu is to run an old utility disk, or Windows 98 install CD, to fdisk format the hd, to clear out all trace crap off the hd, then pull the battery for ten minutes, only then install Ubuntu… I find this process kills all the problems in advance…

Priority-one should be to check the CPU’s fan and cooling fins for dust…

Priority Two should be to separate the AC wires from crossing data wires… Put the AC wires on one side of the desk, and the data wires at the other side.. Tidy-up that Mess…

Get yourself an xmas-tree lites remote unit, and a lightning arrester plug-in adapter…
With the remote you can switch-oof your desk at the touch of a button…

If you’re at the PC for several hours per day, and you occasionally suffer from “computer-bum, get yourself the best car bucket-seat you can find at the auto-wreckers, and soak it down with water, and mig-weld it to the swivel-base of an office chair.. (if you didn’t wet it, and you welded it, you burned a big hole in it)…

lavallie

May 11, 2009 at 1:23 am

I updated from 8,10 to 9,04. There were surprises.

Evolution Mail stopped sending and receiving. Never did resolve that one.

Wireless connects at 1 mb/s. Right now I have to manually set it after every reboot.

After system goes into standby mode, it will not return! I have to reboot each time.

In general the look and feel is nice. I could have don without the surprises which are taking far too much time to resolve. Seems like they went forward in some ways, but slid back in others.